This week in Pikeville, Kentucky, we had an outgoing group of mission trip volunteers from Ohio. They worked with Habitat for Humanity every morning and participated in a mix of outreach activities in the afternoons—playing Uno and Rummy with the residents at Signature Nursing Home, making cards for patients at Appalachia Hospice, helping the Appalachian Pregnancy Center organize their materials and clean their building, and visiting residents at Parkview Nursing Home where they played bowling and colored with Alzheimer’s patients. The team brought joy and Christ’s light every where they went, filling each location with laughter and smiles.
On the construction project side, two team members told me a touching story. They were part of a group helping a homeowner with the exterior of his house, and while helping they started a conversation with the homeowner. One girl noticed he had a small garden, so she asked what he was growing. He shared that it was his wife’s garden but that she had passed away, and now he was trying to grow tomatoes in it. He began to open up about the loss of his wife and how difficult it was. The two girls listened as their hearts filled with compassion. This man felt lost in life with no hope. One girl shared with me that at a certain point in the conversation God put it on her heart to pray for him. Once the conversation began to fade she asked if they could pray for him. He gladly accepted their offer, and, hopefully, just as his tomatoes were striving to grow in his garden, that prayer left a seed of hope in his heart.
You never know when or how God is going to use you. It is so neat to see mission trip teams who are open to letting God work through them and to hear all the stories they have and how each person is a small, yet extremely important part in the work that God is doing in the lives of others. It's very exciting to see the big picture at work here in Pikeville throughout the summer and to be able to share it!
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